


Hooked Up Part Two: Unfinished Business

by PartnersInFanfiction



Series: Hooked Up [2]
Category: Peter Pan & Related Fandoms, Peter Pan (2003), Peter Pan - J. M. Barrie
Genre: F/M, Happy Ending, Pregnancy, Romance, Torture, Torture Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-23
Updated: 2015-03-23
Packaged: 2018-03-19 08:18:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 18,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3602976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PartnersInFanfiction/pseuds/PartnersInFanfiction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucy and James are absolutely sure they got their happily ever after. They have steady jobs, a place to live, and a baby on the way. What could possibly go wrong? Uncle Rick returns in this sequel to Hooked Up, and he has been very busy since Lucy ran away with her little sister.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

            “ _Scheren_ ,”

            Greta handed me the scissors. I cut a streamed and gave them back to her. “ _Stück Klebeband._ ” She cut off a piece of tape and put it on my finger. I then put the tape on the streamer and ran my finger over it to seal it. I then looked around the room. An hour ago, it was a gym. Now it’s an adorably makeshift ballroom. “ _Alles klar, ich denke, wir sind fertig._ ”

            “Frau Hoo—I mean, Lucy,” Greta said in German as I got down from the stepladder. She was an admirably respectful and hard-working student and couldn’t shake the fact that nobody calls me Mrs. Hook. Mrs. Hook was my mother-in-law, that’s why. “You practically organized this whole thing. Don’t you want to be there to see how awesome it’s going to be?”

            “No,” I replied. “You’re all going to get drunk. I don’t want to see you kids get drunk because either my heart will break or I’ll not be able to resist. I know for a fact my husband won’t.” I sighed fondly. My husband was not an alcoholic, just a pirate. Ex-pirate. But still a pirate “And I confided in your class why I’m not allowed to get drunk right now. Do you recall that there’s something alive _down there_ that makes me want pineapple all the damn time?” To this day, I’m surprised why I told forty kids I was pregnant before my own husband. I’m also surprised he didn’t ask me sooner because it was obvious.

            “We can close the bar,” Greta said. “It’s not hard.”

            “Greta,” I sighed. “I can name five people and their parents who will leave the moment they realize there is no bar, and more who will beat us up because there is no bar. We can’t do that. Besides, this is your night. You should have fun.”           

            Greta sighed and turned to the table of kids in the corner who were snacking on the samples the caterers left behind and finishing up the funny awards for teachers, but mostly eating. “I tried,” she called in German.

            The kids groaned and expressed a want for me to come. I sighed and looked around. Boy, we worked hard for half the school year for this. I held auditions for music students to play in the band and we rehearsed English, German and a few Korean songs every Friday afternoon for weeks. They were awesome. I did so much stuff for this and I wasn’t going to come to enjoy it? Plus, they’d probably present me with a goofy award certificate and ask me to make a speech. I guess it would be nice to see some of my kids off. But what of my husband of three years, former fantasy pirate captain James Hook? He was not very good at German and could hardly hold a conversation with someone who didn’t speak English, and he kind of hates crowds and loud contemporary music, German or American or British, after I dragged him to another BlutEngel concert a few years ago. Also, I couldn’t fit into any suitable dresses because I was three months pregnant. But…they may have something bigger in the costume closet I could borrow…and I found ways to coerce James into basically anything…and everyone in this town speaks enough English…and it could be an interesting time to announce that I’m pregnant. I walked towards the group and said in German, “Tell you what. If I can find something that fits and doesn’t make me look like Kim Kardashian’s dress her hobbit friends made out of a couch, _and_ , if you can call my husband and convince him to take me, you got yourself an Abiball with Frau Hook.”

            The kids cheered and I said, “So, first step is finding a dress. Who wants to escort me because I’m not going alone?”

            Greta, Nadine and Sven, whom I knew since I came to Germany immediately stood up and rushed to my side. I said to the remaining kids, “So you guys should think up an interesting way to make my husband come with me while I’m gone. Won’t be long. Bye.”

           

            The costume closet was up a few stairs and was only accessible to students if a teacher who each had a key to it accompanied them. It was a little drafty in there, but we didn’t mind. We were on a mission. “Okay, so I’m a size six—I mean, forty,” I said in German when we came in and the three students looked around the racks of wacky costumes and pretty dresses. “Forty in European terms, six in American. Looking for something flowy under the boobs to hide the bump, nothing too disgusting and tight…uh, search away.”

            Ah, and they found me one. A tea-length size 42 chiffon LBD with a V-shaped neck covered in floral lace. When I hid between some racks and put it on with Nadine to zip me up, it fit perfectly and hid the bump well enough. Sven dug up a gray lace shawl and some bangles and I was good to go. I put on my other clothes and signed the stuff out because the theater lady who was in charge of the costume closet insisted we sign out and back in everything, even if it’s just some costume pearls. We put the stuff in a cardboard box and went back to the gym to find the remaining kids huddling around the table, working. “We’re back,” I said in German.

            They all turned to me. Arno said, “We’re ready. Trust us. This’ll work.”

            I took my phone from my pocket and called the house phone. James had a cell phone for emergencies but hardly ever even touched it. He was at home and he would answer. After three rings, he did. “Lucy, calling during school hours.” He tsked and I giggled.

            “Uh, some students on the Abiball committee want to ask you something,” I said in English. so I’m gonna put you on speaker.” I pressed the speaker button and said, “All right, can you hear me?”

            “Yes,” he replied.

            Arno took my phone from me and put it on the table. The seven kids vocalized in harmony and Arno sang, “Herr Hook…” The other kids repeated it three times. I put my hand to my mouth to stifle a laugh as they sang a song in English begging him to take me to Abiball because they “need their favorite teacher to see us all get drunk. Hey!” They finished the song and as they caught their breath, James said, “Please give me back to Lucy.”

            I snatched my phone back and put it off speaker. “I’m back.”

            “Well, they made a convincing argument,” he said. “Is this truly how’d you like to spend our third anniversary?”

            My hand went straight for my mouth. Shit, I forgot. Today marked the day we got married at City Hall, our only witnesses the crew of the Jolly Roger that returned to Neverland after I somehow installed a telephone system and Internet on the ship so we could contact then when we needed them. They visited every holiday but were waiting for us if we needed them for any reason at all when it wasn’t a holiday. It wasn’t like me to forget this. Shouldn’t my alarm on my phone gone off? Either way, it sounded like James was cool with it and it would be so much fun. “Yeah,” I said. “Partaaayin. Are you cool with that?”

            I could feel him smiling. “Sure, love.”

            I nodded to my students. They didn’t hold back when they cheered at my affirmative response. I said over their shrieks of delight, “Yay! All right, I’ll be home, uh, what time is it?”

            “Almost three ten,” he said.

            “Ooh, okay,” I said. “In like five minutes. Bye.”

            We hung up and an idea struck me hard and fast. “Hey, kids playing in the band,” I said in German. The three boys and four girls leaned forward a little bit. “Remember that Talking Heads song I sang to announce I’m pregnant?”

            “ _Stay up Late?”_ Annie said. I nodded and they all gave various affirmative responses. I continued, “Okay. We hardly rehearsed it, but that’s what you’re gonna do when you get home. Rehearse it until your fingers get sore. We’re gonna find a time to play it for my husband.”

            Greta smiled at me. “I think you’ll find a great time to do it.”

            The bell rang. It was time to go. “See you all tonight!” I exclaimed. We went our separate ways.


	2. Chapter 2

            I drove home, the box with my stuff in the passenger seat of my beautiful black Prius, jamming to _Stay Up Late_ by Talking Heads. The song ended the minute I got home. I pulled over and exited the car, then got the box from the passenger seat and closed the door. To my surprise, the front door to the beautiful rowhome I shared with James Hook was locked. Not up for digging up the keys, I rang the doorbell. Peeking through the door, I noticed James sneak into the foyer but he calmed down when he realized it was me. He unlocked and opened the door and said, “Sorry about that, love. Erh, there’s something going on here in Berlin that will concern you, and I think you’d rather read it than hear it from me.”

            My lips tightened and I went into the living room. I put the box on the coffee table and sat at the desk that held the computer. Through the corner of my eye, I noticed James try to peek in the box and I shouted as I woke up the computer, “Uh-uh, that’s for Abiball and you don’t get to see it until it’s on me.”

            James sighed and stood behind my chair. He had translated an online local news article from ten minutes ago that stated, “ENGLISH MAN KILLS 3 AT AIRPORT, ESCAPES WITH MINOR HE IS SUSPECTED TO HAVE BROUGHT WITH HIM.” I didn’t have to see a collection of pictures from surveillance cameras to know exactly why James brought this to my attention, but when I scrolled down a bit and saw them, I screamed at the top of my lungs. My uncle Rick was in Berlin with my sister Ella whom I hadn’t seen or heard from in six years. I faked a suicide before fleeing to Germany. All ninety thousand Euro I took from Uncle Rick got me on my feet. He knew I was alive, and perhaps Ella did too, if she wasn’t in denial. And they were out to get me.

            When I stopped screaming and started gasping for air, James wrapped his arms around me and calmed me down. I don’t remember even blinking, just staring at that blurry and kind of pixilated picture of two family members I left behind as my eyes watered from the irritation the air put on my eyeballs and because I was scared. James whispered some calming things as my breath slowed down and I closed my eyes. I needed to say something. When I was eighteen and met him, I started talking for the first time—well, either singing, hardly even whispering, or speaking in a normal volume in German. I seem to be more comfortable speaking in German, and on the rare occasion I get horribly nervous and too frightened to talk, I speak in German. “ _Ich kann das nicht glauben,_ ” I muttered, my voice shaky.

            James understood! He kissed my forehead and breathed, “He will never lay a finger on you, I swear.” Holding my hand that gripped the armrest of the chair, he said, “I spoke to the police department. They’re on it. They may just catch him tonight. Are you still up for the…whatever it’s called?”

            “Abiball,” I said. I sighed and continued calmly, “Maybe it’d be good to get out of the house, y’know, so he can’t find me and stuff. It’s at seven, so four hours.” I sighed. “I’m gonna take a shower and wash this crap out of my hair, so…excuse me.”

 

            I took a long and hot shower, singing anything that came to my head at the top of my lungs. _Stay Up Late_ by Talking Heads, _The Lost Children_ by BlutEngel, _Africa_ by Toto, _Had Enough_ by Breaking Benjamin. What a mix! I was scrubbed down by three fifty and blow-dried my now purple hair straight and not frizzy, singing more songs of different genres from R &B to heavy metal. Then it was four ten and I looked pretty good. I then realized my dress was downstairs and for some reason I didn’t want James to look at it, so I put on a robe and ran down to pick it up.

            James was lounging on the couch, reading a book I bought for him to brush up on his German because he’s not good at it. I took the box and he said before I left, “Where did you snatch that from again?”

            “Costume closet,” I said. “I’ll return it…later. It’s pretty so don’t worry. Good job studying.”

            “Thank you,” he replied, returning to his reading.

            I went upstairs back to the bedroom. I threw the dress on the bed and sat at a vanity I picked up from a thrift store before I moved in with James. Opening a drawer, I dug up my non-punk rock makeup and put on an appropriate amount, humming more various songs. Once I was pretty enough by four twenty, I realized I had three hours left to go and all I had to do was put on the dress. But not yet. What to do to pass the time? Think of Ella.

 

            On my phone I had one picture of Ella that I found saved on my Gmail account. She was ten years old at the time and gorgeous. She wore mostly pink but didn’t look like an annoying girly girl. For eight years, she was my everything. The reason I woke up in the morning. I looked at the ring James presented to me when he proposed, which he planned to do the day I was taken away from him, and realized since he slipped it on my finger I hadn’t thought about her.

My thoughts distracted me from the growing chunks in my stomach until they crawled up what I think is my esophagus and a little came out of my mouth. “Shit!” I exclaimed, running to the bathroom. I blew chunks to the brim of the toilet bowl and then I was done. I flushed and then stood up to look in the mirror. The lipstick came off a little, or hid behind the throw up on my chin. I washed it off and went back to reapply. “Lawd, being pregnant is hard,” I muttered as the lipstick rose from the cylinder. I put it on and I looked good again.

I stared blankly at my pretty self in the mirror but I wasn’t thinking about myself. I was still thinking about Ella. She was fifteen now and in Germany. If I saw her, I thought, what would I do? Well, she’d find a home with me whether James liked it or not. On my phone I found the article about her and Uncle Rick and looked at the pictures. I think I saw blue streaks in her hair. She looked taller and more grown up in appearance. In a side shot of her, her stomach looked bigger than normal. Maybe she was standing in front of furniture that was the same color as her dark blue shirt. She had moved around in the pictures and looked the same, however. Something was up, but I couldn’t think of what it was. Sighing, I decided to worry about it later and paint my nails red.

 Looking back, can you blame me? What else was there to do?


	3. Chapter 3

            Two hours and ten minutes passed. James showered and I just sat and relaxed. Then at six thirty, I put on the dress and comfortable black flats I had lying around. I called to James in the bathroom, “I’ll be downstairs waiting for you.”

            “I’ll be down in two minutes,” he replied. I picked up the shawl from the box and put it on my shoulders with a goofy flourish, then went downstairs.

 

            A man of his word, he came down in two minutes precisely, looking as spiffy and sexy as ever. He took one glance at me, though, and I knew I had more than his full approval. With his dulled-down and harmless iron hook in lieu of a right hand, he took my right hand and pressed his lips against my knuckles. My lips tightened and I felt my cheeks reddened. God, I kind of hated but at the same time very much appreciated when he did that. “Beautiful,” he whispered to me. Reaching inside his blazer, he said, “But there’s something missing.”  
            “Oh, shit,” I giggled as he opened the box. I only caught a glimpse of the sparkly thing inside it before he took it out of the box and put it around my neck. I saw in the mirror on the right side of the door what it was. Silver twisted into a bow shape covered in what I couldn’t imagine were diamonds. “Holy crap, James, how’d you get your hands on this?”

            He finished clasping it on my neck and then just wrapped his arms around me from behind. “I have my ways,” he purred before planting a soft kiss on my neck.

            “I feel like shit,” I said. “I was so caught up on Abiball stuff…I kinda forgot so I owe you one.”

            He tightened his loving grasp on me a little more. “You owe me absolutely nothing, my love. Your very presence is all I could ever ask for.”

            “Nyah, don’t make me cry happy tears, I put too much gunk on my face,” I laughed, squirming out of his grip. We left the house and went to my Prius. James did drive well enough but both of us felt more comfortable when I was behind the wheel. Unless I was passed out or something, if it was a super emergency, I’d be behind the wheel. I buckled up and peeked through the corner of my eye and noticed James hadn’t buckled up, so I just sat and waited for him to realize why. He looked at me. “Is something wrong?”

            “Yep,” I said. “Only one occupied seat is buckled.”

            He rolled his eyes and buckled his seatbelt. “Good boy,” I told him. He half-scoffed and half-chortled and I started the car to the school.

 

            The parking lot reserved for teachers was an unholy mess of cars that did not belong to teachers. “God damn it, can people _read_ here?” I shrieked as I pulled out of the parking lot and went in search of another place on the street. “ _Lehrer und Fakultät Nur_.” James didn’t honor my driving rant with a response. He didn’t need to. He just watched the cars filled with students in pretty prom dresses and spiffy suits and their parents file into the back door of the gym. Luckily I found a spot just down the street from the school and didn’t bump into the sparkly black Volkswagen that belonged to the majestic termagant Fräulein Cora Eckard. Forty-three and divorced three times, she ruled 12 th and 11th grade math and the disciplinary system with an iron fist and despised everything awesome and fun, even if it was educational. Therefore, every breath I took pissed her off. She was jealous I had such an awesome role in the school and everyone liked me and passive aggressively beat me up for it. I also think she had a crush on James. Bottom line: she envied people who had things she couldn’t have or never got. She got out of her car in a modest dark orange dress below her knees. Oh, I felt so sorry for her. She did not look good in orange. “ _Guten Abend_ , Frau Hook,” she said.

            “ _Guten Abend_ , Fräulein Eckard,” I said with a smile. She could call any other teacher by their first name and would let them do the same, but I was another stupid kid to her. In German, I continued, “Lovely evening for Abiball.”

As James got out of the car, she said, “Well, I didn’t know you were coming.”  
“Well, I am,” I replied, trying not to sound too sassy.

She looked at James when he walked to my side and her cold gray eyes widened. “Erh…good _eving_ , Messer Hook," she murmured. Her English was not good at all.

“ _Guten Abend_ , Fräulein Eckard,” James replied with a really bad German accent. He knew her from my rants and some teacher events, but they never had an extended conversation.

He offered me his arm and I took it. Fräulein Eckard gave me a dirty look. “Well, see you later,” I said in German, not wanting to say anything else to her, and then I led James away across the street to the school.

           

            At the entrance of the gym, students greeted us not on the Abiball committee excitedly. “ _Oh mein Gott, es ist Lucy! Hallo, Lucy!”_ I greeted them back with smiles and brief polite greetings back until we reached the door, where Greta’s parents (as I recognized from their name tag), were greeting people. “Frau _und_ Herr Gottlieb?” I said. In German I continued, “I’m Lucy Hook, Greta’s English teacher.”

            Greta’s mom, a middle-aged but pretty woman in a purple dress, smiled brightly at me. “Oh, hi! We’ve heard a lot about you, so much that we made her have you sit at our table,” she replied in English, but with an accent that made it kind of hard to understand. “Number 8. See you there.”

            We pushed in and James looked around as we walked to the table. “Quite a setup,” he said.

            “The goal was to hide the fact that it’s a gym,” I said. “So me, Greta and Sven hung up the streamers and threw around the sequin confetti while the other kids texted.” Sven and Greta were at the table with Sven’s dad and Sven’s one grade younger boyfriend Fabian, who was one of my first piano students when I came to Germany. By the time I was reunited with James, he was proficient and didn’t need me but he still came over once in a while and knew James personally. We also hooked them up when Sven came out of the closet. “Hey, guys,” I said. James let go of me and pulled out a chair for me. I gave him a flattered and thankful look and sat down.

            “Oh my god, Lucy…perfect,” Sven said in German with a smile. He looked at Fabian. “I told you she’d pull it off better than Frau Ritter. See?”

            Ludwiga Ritter was at the table across from us in a similar LBD that was a little too low-cut for her small chest. Oy. I said in German, “You all know my husband, James, who doesn’t speak German very well.”

            Sven’s dad said in English, “Well, _Herr_ Hook, I’d imagine you’d try to learn, considering you’ve lived here for what, two years?”

            “Three,” he replied, his left hand wandering to my left ring finger that never released the ring he presented me with three years and one day ago. “Believe me, I try, but unlike some individuals, I cannot seem to learn foreign languages by watching frightening films hailing from that nation.”

            “Or by how I taught those businesspeople before teaching here most of the time,” I scoffed, playfully hitting the side of his arm. “Good news is _enough_ people here speak _enough_ English so he can go on Fanta runs for me while I’m grading your tests, kids.”

            All the kids and their parents and dates had come in quickly, and the principal, Herr Klaus Pfeiffer took the stage. I often compared him to a beardless Dumbledore and Fräulein Eckard to Snape except less heroic. I never figured out who the hell I was. “Good evening, everybody,” he said in German. “And welcome to Abiball.”

            “Yeah!” Sven shouted, raising a fist in the air.

            Klaus Pfeiffer subtly smiled at him. “I would like to call up in alphabetical order by last name each homeroom class and their teacher to hand out diplomas, starting with Frau Adler.”

            Frau Adler’s class went up, then Herr Baum, then Fräulein Eckard, then Herr Faust, then Frau Keller, then Herr Mueller, then Frau Trommler and that was it. A class had graduated. Once they had all received their diplomas, they waited in front of the stage for the big picture to be taken, which I remembered when a vice principal, Frau Lehrer, handed me a camera that it was my job. I put the camera strap around my neck and carried my chair a few yards away from where they all stood. Parents with their phone cameras and point-and-shoots gathered around and struggled to get a good angle. I had the best. “Say cheese!” I exclaimed in English. Most of the kids just laughed but that got them smiling. I took four good photos and when I was done, I gave a thumb’s up. The entire room clapped and it echoed against the walls. I returned my chair and as Klaus Pfeiffer completed the graduation part of the ceremony and the kids in the band took the stage to begin the first dance, which was always and going to be a waltz, I realized something. I turned to James and said, “James, I just realized something.”

            “Yes, love?” he said.

            “We’ve been married three years and never ever danced as a couple.”

            The band started playing and students and parents took the floor. James stood up and bowed. “May I have this dance, Mrs. Hook?”

            I felt my cheeks turn bright pink. “Certainly,” I replied somewhat nervously for no explainable reason. He took my hand and led me to the dance floor. We got into the position and I realized again, “I think we never have because I never learned.”  
            “It’ll come naturally,” he responded before bringing my hand to his lips and planting a soft kiss on it. I brought myself closer to his shoulder and he held me a little tighter as I leaned my head on it, and we began to dance.

            I didn’t think of it then, but I forgot all about the fact that Ella and Uncle Rick were somewhere not far and probably were out to get me because they have no other excuse to fly to Berlin and shoot up an airport. I thought of two things—how freaking in love I was with James Hook, and the thing inside me we created with our genitals. How very nervous I was to tell him something was in there, but I knew in my heart that he’d be thrilled. The song eventually ended, and Greta and Sven took the stage. “All right, everybody,” Greta said excitedly in German. “The buffet and bar is open and in five minutes we’re going to give the first annual _Beste Super fantastische Lehrer-Preis_.”

            They did not tell me about this _Best Super Awesome Teacher Award_ , but I knew by the way Greta winked at me that it was for me. And I guessed when I heard a familiar beat playing on Marco’s drums. The drums for _Stay Up Late_. I was prepared. James and I got food and to his confusion I refused the alcohol but allowed him to have some if he took it easy. I got a few bites in when Greta and Sven took the stage again and Sven said, “Okay, ladies and gentlemen, we are now going to present the _Beste Super fantastische Lehrer-Preis.”_

“What does that mean?” James whispered in my ear.

            “Best Super Awesome Teacher Award,” I replied. “I think I’m in the bag.”

            Greta presented a trophy that had a clear crystal apple on top of a black base with silver engraving on the base that I couldn’t read because it was too far away and Greta’s fingers covered it. “Our _Beste Super fantastische Lehrer-Preis_ goes to a certain teacher who has been no stranger to the students here since she arrived in Germany at the age of eighteen,” Sven began in German.

            As much as I saw this coming from the moment they announced they were doing this, I got really excited and clenched my hands together.

            “She began teaching English part time two years ago,” Greta added. “And stuck around for school activities. This is her first year working full-time.”

            I could feel people turn their heads to stare at me.

            “Not only does she teach English, she created a more exciting music program for the entire school. But that’s not all she’s done for us,” Greta continued.

            She stepped back and Sven made a solemn face. “I knew I was gay since I was fifteen years old. The winner of the _Beste Super fantastische Lehrer-Preis_ knew since she met me when I was thirteen, on the first guitar lesson she gave me. I remember, at the age of sixteen after one of the first English classes she taught that I had the honor of attending, approaching her as school let out. I said to her, ‘Would you still like me if I’m gay?’ She looked up from her three o’clock snack and computer and said to me, ‘On the condition that you would be my sassy gay friend. I really need one.’ I still took guitar lessons from her but they were more like music therapy. After a month of talking it out, she made me bet five euro that my parents would still love me. I said to my parents when they came to pick me up, ‘Mom, Dad, I’m gay.’ They hugged and kissed me and said they loved me, and the winner of the _Beste Super fantastische Lehrer-Preis_ simply said, ‘Ha, I was right. That’ll be five euro’”

            Everybody, including James, laughed.

            “‘We would all like to thank Frau Lucy Hook for her support of us, and present her with this crystal trophy,” Greta said. “Come on up, Lucy!”

            I stood up as everyone clapped and went on the stage. Sven and Greta hugged me one at a time and then together.

            “ _Rede!_ ” a boy I recognized to be Arno shouted.

I went to the microphone stand and said in German, “Uh, I’d like to thank the Academy…the Lord Jesus Christ.” I got a few laughs. “In all seriousness, though, this graduating class for being...the _Beste Super fantastische_ kids in the history of history.”

The graduating kids especially clapped. Greta whispered to me, “Now’s the chance to play _Stay Up Late_. You ready?”

“I was born ready, babe,” I replied, squeezing her shoulder. Greta said in the microphone, “Lucy has an announcement to make to those who haven’t heard, including her wonderful husband Herr James Hook.”

His gorgeous blue eyes widened, I noticed as I handed the award to Sven to bring to the table. Gisela brought the electric keyboard closer to me and said, “Hey, Lucy, do you think…you could do the piano? I, uh, didn’t practice but I could sing backup with Dominik and Ida.”

“Okay, but I reserve the right to punish you by flicking your head. Ready?”

She nodded and I snapped my fingers against her head. A few laughs. She brought the chair over for me and lowered the microphone to my face. I said in German, “I’m going to speak in English so my not very fluent husband can understand. You can ask someone what I said later if you don’t understand, but I hope my English 3 kids get the basic words. I’m talking to you, Nadine.”

Nadine’s table laughed. I cleared my throat. No turning back now. I said in English in the microphone after testing the keys, “So I’ve been married to James Hook for three years to the day. I’m reminded every morning when I wake up by his side that somebody in the world loves me unconditionally, and this bond will never be broken. I have, uh, _news_ that’s about three months old and the size of…a kidney bean, I gather.” I looked back at the band. They nodded. I looked towards James, who I think knew what was going on, and opened my mouth to just plainly say I’m pregnant, but couldn’t. So I just began the song. I played two keys, then Marco did the three drumbeats, then I did two more different keys, then Marco did the drums. This went on two more times and then I made that weird sound David Byrne made. Marco and I did our duo a few more times and then I sang. _“Mommy had a little baby. There he is, fast asleep. He’s just…a little plaything…why not…wake him up? Cute, cute…little baby. Little peepee and little toes. Now he’s…comin’ to me. Crawl across the kitchen floor.”_

Nadine, Dominik and Ida sang with me as Hugo joined on guitar, “ _Baby, baby, please let me hold him. I wanna make him stay up all night. Sister, sister, he’s just a plaything. We wanna make him stay up all night.”_ They stopped and I said, “Yeah, we do!”

Marco and I did our piano-drum thing a few more times and I awkwardly did the snorting sounds. Then I continued alone, “ _See him drink…from the bottle. See him eat…from a plate. Cute, cute…as a button. Don’t you wanna make him—“_ The backup joined again “ _Stay up late. And we’re having fun with no money._ ” Solo. “ _Little smile on his face_.” The backup came in, “ _Don’t’cha love…the little baby. Don’t you wanna make him…stay up late!”_ We did the chorus again, and then the dialogue with the backup, and then the song was finished. James was staring in shock. I slammed my hands on the piano, stood up, raised my arms in the air and exclaimed at the top of my lungs, “I’m pregnant!”

James got up and ran towards me. I did the same until we met near the dance floor and I leaped into his arms. We kissed in front of, like, one hundred fifty clapping people, and we were happy.


	4. Chapter 4

The kids started dancing to their upbeat pop music as James and I ate and talked. Sometimes I got up to dance with some of my students to BlutEngel because James wouldn’t dance with me, but usually I was hanging out with my husband, leaning on him as I put French fries in my mouth one by one.  
It was nine twenty when the doors unexpectedly and loudly opened, grabbing the attention of the entire room. Fräulein Eckard approached the dark figure that attended and said in German, “Who are you?”  
The figure produced a gun and shot her in the head. She died and everyone screamed. “Lucinda Pennington, come out right now and nobody else gets shot.”  
I covered my mouth and looked at James. He grabbed my hand and I grabbed my purse. He led me out of the gym through the door that led to a hallway. Some more people followed, but we were ahead of them. I heard muffled shots, or maybe they were in my head, but some people died and I knew who killed them.   
We made it to the car and I handed James the keys. “You drive. I’m spooked.” I said quickly. He obeyed and didn’t buckle up, but neither did I. He sped far away from the school. I didn’t cry or throw up. I stared blankly straight ahead, my muscles tense and my hands shaking, but the rest of my body frozen. James may have spoken in an attempt to calm me down, but I didn’t hear him until we stopped at a gas station.  
“We need gas,” he said, pulling over. “We’re a safe distance away, I believe, at least for now.”  
I sighed and noticed there was an express market. “I need gummy bears. Want anything from the store?”  
“Are you sure that’s safe to eat while pregnant?”  
“In moderation, yeah. I haven’t had them since we conceived, so yeah, we’re good. BRB.” I jogged into the store.

In front of the cash register was a young girl with blue streaks in her straight dirty blonde hair. She wore a dark blue shirt that was small because she had some Buddha belly. She almost looked pregnant. “Tel-e-phone,” she said, sounding very frustrated, as if she had said this a million times to the man behind the counter. “I want to use your telephone.”  
“Mein vat?” he replied.  
I shook my head as I picked up a pack of Haribo gummy bears and approached the counter. I said to the girl, “Not a lot of people speak English. This isn’t much of a tourist zone.”  
Her hazel eyes widened as they stared directly into mine. Something drew me to her to stare back, and I realized how familiar they looked. But for some reason, I couldn’t put my finger on who they belonged to. “D-do I know you?” I muttered.   
She nodded. “Yeah. You do. We shared a room for ten years.”  
My mouth dropped and froze in its position. Now I knew. Standing in front of me was my now fifteen-year-old sister, who was alone in a foreign country and pregnant. “Ella?” I somehow managed to whisper.  
“Long time no see, Lucinda Pennington,” she said, tears running down her cheeks. She threw her arms around me and I did the same, wailing on her shoulder. After a little while, the man behind the counter said in German, “Are you going to buy that pack of gummy bears or are you just going to hold it?”  
Ella and I abruptly released each other and I put the pack on the counter. He scanned it and I paid for it with a credit card. He put it in a bag and I said to Ella, “Okay, you’re coming home with me and James. NQA.”  
“Uncle Rick shot up the school you work at, didn’t he?” she said as we exited the shop.  
I cringed. “Yeah…some people died.”  
“Five people,” James said. He was looking at a TV screen attached to the gas pump station. “Sven’s father included.”  
My hands went straight to my mouth and my knees got weak. I didn’t fall but I shrunk a few inches, swallowing a scream of terror. Once I began to breathe through my nose a little, Ella said, “Holy shit, Lucy, you married Captain Hook?”  
I nodded and released my mouth. I sighed and partly waddled to his side. “Yeah. three years ago today.” I gestured to Ella. “You remember Ella…well, she’s here now and I guess she needs sanctuary.”  
“As do we,” he said. “He hasn’t been caught, the bastard. We need to disappear.”  
“Where?” I said.  
“The one place he can’t get from here,” he said. “Neverland.”


	5. Chapter 5

            We drove Ella to the house to quickly pack some stuff and contact the crew. I brought Ella upstairs to the bedroom and dug out a suitcase from a closet, and then began throwing stuff in as I told her how James found me in Berlin after a BlutEngel concert and we got married at city hall the next day with the crew as our witnesses. I explained quickly and packed slowly, and when I was done talking I said, “Now it’s your turn.” I put my hand on her belly and looked her square in the eye. “What did he do to you?”

            “Everything he did to you,” she replied, looking down at her clenched hands. “With one mino—no, _major_ addition.”           

            I hugged her as tightly as I could without crushing her and let her cry on my shoulder. “Oh, my poor Ella,” I whimpered as the tears escaped my tear ducts.

            “He talked me out of getting an abortion,” she murmured, her voice muffled from burying her face in my shoulder. “I’m having this deformed incest baby, I guess.”

            I lifted her face and said, “I’m pregnant, too.”

            Her mouth dropped. She actually smiled. “That’s awesome.” She put her hand on my miniature baby bump and then looked up at me. “It’s gonna be genetically perfect.”

            I smiled. “I guess. We’re a handsome couple.”

            We hugged again for what could have been three or thirty minutes until James came in, holding a cordless landline phone.  “I got a response. They will probably be at the dock by the time we reach Bremerhaven, if not an hour or so later.”

            “Hey, is someone still on the phone?” I asked.

            “Kojo,” he replied.

            I beamed. All the pirates on the Jolly Roger were like the brothers I never had, but Kojo and I had a special bond that no English or German words could describe. “Gimme!” I exclaimed, reaching for the phone. James smiled a little and gave it to me. I put it to my ear and said, “Kojo? It’s Lucy.”

            I could feel him smiling. “Lucy! How’s it going, mon?”

            “Uh, that’s a tough question,” I murmured. “I’ve calmed down a lot, considering my wicked uncle is in Berlin and is out to get me because my sister is back, and she’ll be staying on the ship with us, I guess until they catch him. How’s it going with you?”

            “Pretty good, now that we get to see you again,” he said.

            “I feel the same way,” I said with a huge smile.

            “Cap’n said yerr expectant,” he said.

            “Yessir, I am,” I replied.

            “I feel like I should warn ye, Lucy,” he said. “Pregnancy in Neverland is different than it is on Earth. The Redskins give birth to perfectly healthy babies in _three_ months Earth time. Time’s different here, y’know, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened to you.”

            “Hmm,” I murmured. “Well, this isn’t gonna stop me from coming. I mean, we have to.”

            “You should be fine,” he said. “See you in five hours. We’re about to set sail.”

            “Awesome,” I replied. “See you soon.” I hung up. “I guess we should, uh, hit the road.”

           

            James took the wheel for the drive through the night across the country to Bremerhaven because Ella was ready to sleep but didn’t want to be away from me. I didn’t sleep. I just watched Ella sleep peacefully leaning her head on my lap and thinking what Uncle Rick did to her. I recalled pressing a gun to Uncle Rick’s crotch before running, or flying away to Germany and telling him that if he touched Ella, I’d shoot it off and make him eat it. “ _I’ll even_ cook _it for you_ ,” I had said. Now I didn’t think he’d deserve the luxury. He’d have to eat it raw and whole. I smiled at the thought of tears running down his eyes as he struggled to swallow it, gagging and choking, and then I realized how very sadistic and horrible I was thinking and whispered to James, “Oh my god, I just had this really gross thought…that, uh, you don’t want to hear about because it might scare you.”  
            “I’ll take your word for it,” he said. “We’ll arrive in about two hours.”

            “Cool,” I said. I looked down at Ella and sighed. “She hasn’t changed, really. Just…got a little bigger. But I didn’t recognize her at first. Isn’t that weird?”

            “Perhaps,” he replied. “It has been, what, five years?”

            “Mhmm,” I breathed. “Five years that were easy for me, but for her, apparently not.” I sighed. “I can’t believe she’s _pregnant_. I got lucky. He got close to doing that to me—raping me, but I escaped. She didn’t have the strength to, I guess until today because I found her alone in the express market.”

            “Did she tell you the story behind it?”

            “I didn’t think she’s ready,” I replied. “Y’know, bit by bit. It’s painful.”

            She stirred but didn’t wake up, so I went back to silence.

 


	6. Chapter 6

            We arrived at Bremerhaven at almost three o’clock in the morning, but the city wasn’t asleep. There were a few trucks on the way to and from the harbor and as we drove I noticed a grocery store was open. “Maybe we should get some food before leaving this planet,” I said. “There’s a grocery store open.”

            Ella, who had been fast asleep for five hours as if she hadn’t in five weeks, jerked up. “Food? I want food. Let’s get food.”

            James pulled over by the dock. “Go ahead, then. I’ll wait here and call you when they arrive.”

            Ella and I got out of the car and before we headed towards the grocery store across the corner, she grabbed my hand and squeezed it. Her hands were still small compared to mine. When I looked at her as we walked, I forgot that she was fifteen and pregnant and saw my ten-year-old sister who was more of a daughter to me than she’d ever be to our parents. My mom never even breastfed her. In the early days she’d squeeze some out, put it in a bottle and give it to me to feed her. I was eight years old, but I didn’t mind at all. I might have loved it. And eventually we’d have the opportunity to breastfeed our own babies. I knew I was going to do it right. I was almost twenty-four, but respected as if I were older. I could do this. But Ella was fifteen years old. Could she? My thoughts were interrupted when we stepped inside the little grocery store and I heard the radio in German.

            “… _Kappel’s son, Sven, has been admitted to a psychiatric hospital in Berlin after an acute stress reaction to his father’s death.”_

“Oh my god,” I murmured.

            “What did he say?” Ella asked.

            “Some kid I know is in the hospital.” I held onto her hand tighter with no intention to let go in the near future.

            “C’mon, let’s just get some food,” she whispered to me. She was calm.

            She picked up a basket with her free hand and we lead each other around the aisles. I picked up two of everything I wanted as Ella hummed _Castle On a Cloud_ from Les Miserables, perhaps to calm me down and/or to keep me from listening to the radio. It worked well enough.

            When the basket was full, we went to the counter and put it on. The man at the counter said in German as he scanned the items, “How about this mystery airport shooter, hmm?”

            “How about him,” I replied blankly but at the same time solemnly, squeezing Ella’s hand a little more. “He exists.”

            “Killed five people, three of them kids who just got their Abi,” he said. “Maimed ten. And they didn’t catch him. How is that possible?”

            Was it partially my fault? I had almost two thousand days to report him. I could have kept him from ever hurting anyone again, especially Ella. My lips tightened. “I…have no idea.”

            _“…A neighbor of a teacher at the school claimed to have heard him walking down the street shouting”_ He said in English, _“‘Lucy! Come out, come out, wherever you are!’”_ I couldn’t restrain myself from shuddering, but the man was too busy scanning to see.

            “Hmm. Wonder who that is. Hope she’s safe,” he said, not looking up from the groceries until he finished. “Sixty euro.”

            I dug out my credit card with my free hand and said to him as he swiped it through the machine, “If she’s not dead yet, she should be.”

            He gave me my card and the receipt. “She’s in my prayers, then.”

            “Thanks,” I muttered, and then took two of the three bags. Ella took the other.

            “Have a nice day,” he called as we walked away.

 

            “What were you guys talking about?” Ella asked as we walked back to the car.

            “Uncle Rick,” I replied somewhat spitefully. “My friend Sven’s dad died, and he’s in the hospital because he freaked out.” I sighed. “He has a boyfriend who’s…just great…and I wonder how he’s gonna handle it. Probably not well because they’re…they’re everything to each other.” A warm tear fell down my cheek. I squeezed her hand. “Let’s…talk about this…later.”

            I noticed through the early morning mist a silhouette of a ship unlike the metal cargo ships that came and went day and night. It was huge and majestic, with sails and everything. It wasn’t just any old ship. It was my ship. All the anxiety over Uncle Rick on the loose had been vaporized out of my mind. “Here she is,” I said with a smile bigger than I thought I could ever manage. I still held her hand, but I didn’t care very much if she didn’t follow me when I ran towards the ship. Once I was closer, I noticed Cecco, Starkey, Alf Mason and Bill Jukes were pulling the car onto the ship using the ramp. I shouldn’t have distracted them, but I couldn’t help it. “Hey, guys!” I called.           

            They looked at me. “Lucy!” they all exclaimed at different times. The car almost slid down but they caught it in time and had more motivation to pull it in faster. Once they did, they all ran off the ramp and greeted me, until the car began to slide down the ramp. They got it back up, though, and our luggage as well up onto the deck. Starkey and Cecco got Ella gently onto the deck, and a hand I recognized immediately pulled me up next. And when I saw the filthy awesome pirate who was lucky enough to keep that hand, I couldn’t help screaming in joy. “Kojo!” I hugged him until his hearty laughs turned into gasps for air. I didn’t think of Ella, or James for that matter, as I reunited with the rest of the crew who hadn’t changed a bit, until I heard and sensed my guitar falling out of its case and onto the deck. Smee tripped over his shoelace, and James didn’t look happy. I approached them and Smee saw me. “Oh, Miss—I—“

            There wasn’t a scratch on the guitar, even the strings hadn’t shifted. “Okay, it’s okay,” I said. “But I’m gonna do to you what I do to all my students when they muck around with the instruments.”

            He narrowed his eyes, confused. I flicked his forehead and then gently patted his rough cheek. “Okay, all’s forgiven,” I said with a smile. James stifled a laugh. I said to him, “I guess we’re ready?”

            “They’re lifting anchor right now,” he said.

            Ella found her way to my side, took my hand and murmured, “Lucy, I’m scared.”

            “Scared?” I repeated. “Why?”

            She shrugged. “This doesn’t seem…sanitary.”

            I chortled. “If it weren’t sanitary, I wouldn’t have ditched the family for this guy.” I pointed back at James. “You worried that they’ll ogle you or something?”

            “Yeah,” she muttered sheepishly.

            A sympathetic James said, “They won’t, I can assure you. They kept off Lucy knowing she was mine, they’ll keep off you knowing you’re her sister.”

            “You haven’t been introduced, that’s what’s eating you,” I decided. The anchor was lifted and we were in motion. I called out, “ _Everyone_!” and got attention. “Okay, so, welcome back, good to see all of your faces again. I’m gonna give you the lowdown on what’s going on. You have two pregnant chicks on board, one of whom is me and the other of whom is my sister.” I put my hand on Ella’s shoulder. “Be nice to her because she’s my sister. We’re on the run from a certain red-haired child molester and we are fragile. So…we’re off to Neverland again and…yeah.” I clapped my hands once and lifted my left fist into the air. I noticed my guitar still on the floor and picked it up. I sat on the stairs leading to the cabins and beckoned my head for Ella to join me as the crew and James went to work. “Okay, sailing jams. This one is for Noodler because he thinks Dennis DeYoung is the shit.”

            A few people turned their heads to look at him. He shrugged, but he and I shared a secret smile. I love introducing new music to people. I began to play _Come Sail Away_ by Styx and I noticed Ella’s face light up when she recognized the intro. She didn’t have to open her mouth to ask for permission to sing along, and I didn’t have to open my mouth to grant it. We sang to the edge of the world. Ella fell asleep as we exited the atmosphere and I saw that she was carried to the spare room to sleep. I put my guitar away and then went to stand by James at the wheel. We were in space by then, and I think I could hear my heart beat. I didn’t look around at all the stars and planets and meteors when I came and left Neverland when I was hardly eighteen because flying made me anxious and I could only focus on my bad memories, but now even though I knew Uncle Rick was looking for me, I felt safe. Probably because we were in outer _fucking_ space. Nobody could catch us now. “I haven’t seen this many stars…in a while. It was daytime when I flew across the English Channel to go to Germany. No stars.”           

            James looked at me. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you this solemn, Lucy,” he said.

            I shrugged. “Nothing’s wrong. I’m just…brooding…or something.” I sighed, and realized we were in outer space and breathing. “We’re breathing. I didn’t think of it the last two times. It’s like my whole life’s a lie, y’know, because they say there’s no oxygen in space but here we are.”

            Cecco heard this and said, “We’ve made the trip dozens’a times, so perhaps it don’t affect us.”

            “Did it at first?” I asked.

            He shrugged. “I don’t remember.”

            We got closer to a light across the blue planet that’s actually Earth, and started going faster. “Strangely, I’m looking forward to going back,” James muttered.

            “You don’t know where you are until you’re gone,” Bill Jukes said.

            “Don’t you mean you don’t know what you _have_ until _it’s_ gone?” I responded.

            He shrugged. The ship got faster and faster by the second. A weird mixture of anxiety and excitement came over me and all I could do was hold James’s hand and watch the star come closer and closer until it turned into another universe.

 


	7. Chapter 7

            It hadn’t changed a bit. The sky was still blue with cotton candy clouds that looked like a painting when you looked up at them from the surface. We were sailing on the water now, and I could see the harbor between the beach and the forest. I kind of did miss it, and I was happy it hadn’t changed. “It really hasn’t changed,” I said.

            “No, nothing except fer Pan,” Alf Mason said. “Ain’t terrorizin’ us anymore ‘cause there’s no one to fight. He’s still there, just terrorizin’ the Redskins ‘r somethin’.”

            Ella emerged from the cabin, I guess before Alf Mason spoke. “I wanna see him,” she said.

            I looked back at her. “I’m not sure about that.”

            “Why not?” she replied blankly.

            “You seriously wanna hike into the woods…how pregnant are you again?”

            “Six months,” she replied as if it were nothing. But it was something. The summer had just started. Uncle Rick impregnated her while she was still in school. There were a lot of things I had to ask her and I thought I should do it one step at a time to ease the pain for both of us, but I needed answers _now_. I took her hand and said, “Let’s you and me go to a restaurant on the harbor and talk this out. We’re pregnant chicks and we need food.”

            Kojo found us enough gold for tea and hand in hand, Ella and I went to a fancy little tea house. We were seated and served immediately, and once Ella was settled enough, I suggested we play the Game of Questions to catch up. She agreed and allowed me to go first. “If you’re six months pregnant…what the fuck was Uncle Rick doing in Philadelphia in December?”

            “Nothing, I went to London,” she said. “Mom and Dad divorced. Dad gets me every winter, spring and summer break, and Grandma and Grandpa want him over every Christmas and summer so he took me.”

            That prompted a million more questions. I opened my mouth to ask but she said, “Nuh-uh, it’s my turn.” I nodded for her to go ahead. She asked me, “What’s it like to be married to a pirate?”

            “Ex-pirate, really,” I replied. “Uh…he really can blend in, at least in the century but not in the society because he sucks at German. But…yeah, we pass as a regular couple because we are.” I shrugged. “The sex is pretty good, too.”

            She smiled. “Okay, your turn.”

            “When was the first time Uncle Rick laid a hand on you?”

            She swallowed a big gulp of her tea. “Before we left London for the summer after you disappeared. He called me to his room, saying he had a surprise for me…but he was just naked.” This pained her. A stranger who didn’t know the context could tell by the sound of her voice alone or the look on her face. “I don’t wanna talk about it.” No matter. That was enough for me. She asked me, “Did you ever forget me? For a minute? It kinda felt like you did at the convenience store.”

            “You’re five years older. I still think you’re an infant sometimes,” I replied with a smile. “Plus you’re pregnant and your hair is blue. How could I? I thought of you every waking moment, somewhere in my head, so how could I actually forget you?”

            She smiled as she swallowed her tea. “Okay.”

            “Was this the first time Uncle Rick… _y’know’d_?”

            “No. He started the year after Mom and Dad divorced, the first time Dad took me for Christmas. Christmas Eve at night, he snuck in my room and attacked me. Grandma and Grandpa can’t fucking hear anything and Dad was passed out drunk.”

            “How old were you then?”

            “Twelve,” she said. “It’s my turn, though. I’ll ask you two. Got any names for your baby?”

            “I’m, like, three months and I told my husband, like, seven hours ago. Absolutely not.”

            She giggled. I forgot that sitting across from me was a fifteen-year-old soon-to-be teenage mother. She was a playful ten-year-old girl, giggling because I said something funny. When I blinked, I saw a pregnant girl again and I was sad. She asked me, “Did you tell anyone else that Uncle Rick… _y’know’d_?”

            “Only one person besides James and the crew,” I said. “Chris Pohl, lead singer of Blutengel. I was a part-time Blutengel groupie for a few years and somehow made it backstage, I told him my life story and he believed it, then on the ferry home I ran into James, and the rest is history.”

            “You got married right away?”

            I smirked at her. “Yes. That’s three questions. I get to ask you three questions.” She chuckled and rolled her eyes. Until I blinked again, she was my ten-year-old sister and not a pregnant teen. “How the hell did you and Uncle Rick find out I’m alive and well?”

            “You didn’t know? One of your students posted a project in an English class of yours on YouTube. It went viral. I recognized you and Uncle Rick heard me screaming, then he recognized you. You didn’t age.”

            Ah, yes. For English 3, students were writing to American penpals and they all agreed to do a _Day in the Life_ video project to send to their American friends. Arno included three second clips of him waking up, going on the bus, sitting in class and looked rather glum. This went on until the last period of the day, which was my English 3 class. He smiled and said in English, “This is where it gets awesome.” He candidly filmed me doing the robot to _Da Da Da_ by Trio when Dominik’s phone rang. “Lucy, he’s filming you,” Ida said. I looked into Arno’s camera and gave him my death stare. I gave him permission to post it on YouTube but I don’t go on YouTube much and therefore I had no clue it went viral. I hadn’t seen it elsewhere so there was no way to know. He didn’t tell me. Maybe he was scared. I forgave him. “Ah,” I murmured.

            “He’s cute,” she said. “The kid who did the thing.”

            “Yes, he’s adorable,” I chortled. “I pinch his cheeks sometimes. They’re soft.” I noticed she stared dreamily into space. “He has a girlfriend.”

            “Wha—“ She sighed. “Okay, not like any boy’ll like me in my current and future condition,” she scoffed.

            “Hey, Jamie Lynn Spears did okay,” I said. “Next question. How’d you pull it off at school? Don’t people notice?”

            “No. I wore baggy shirts and hoodies…and nobody looks at me anyway. I went to Planned Parenthood a few times but…just stopped. Mom and Dad don’t even know. I mean, maybe Mom would notice, but she turned to the drink even more and she’s not sober enough to sign a permission slip. Dad…Dad is Dad.”

            “Okay,” I replied. “Uh, last one…why are you keeping the baby?”

            She shrugged. “There’s nothing I can do now. I mean, maybe I’ll chicken out and give it away, but probably not. And…maybe the baby’ll help put Uncle Rick away. He’s dangerous. We’re not the only minors he’s harmed. You ever seen his closet?”

            I shook my head.

            “Good. It’s child porn hell.”

            My mouth dropped. “He…he has child porn?”

            “All over the walls of his closet, and some on the ceiling. Boys, girls, black, white, Asian. There’s one of you asleep in bed. I guess he took off your clothes, took the picture, then redressed you.”

            She said it so casually. It was horrifying. She had it worse than I did. All because I ran away. Guilt, fear, sadness and everything took over and it lifted the little sandwiches back up my esophagus and I ran out of the restaurant, to the edge of the harbor where there was water and threw up. I noticed Ella was there when I was done, but she was sswthere for a while. She rubbed my back and said, “They’re gonna get him. He can run, but he can’t hide.”

            I nodded. Before I could say anything, someone from the teahouse stormed out the window and shouted, “Hey, are you gonna pay for that?”

            “Sorry, sir,” I said sheepishly. I reached into the pocket of my hoodie and pulled out what they gave me. “Will this do?”

            He took it and gave a satisfied smile. “Sure. Have a nice day.” He left.

 

            So we went back to the ship and did pirate-y recreational things. Ella really bonded with the crew, especially when she, James, Kojo, Smee and I sat in a circle with a rum-stained deck of cards and played Bullshit. Some people call it Cheat, but we’re sailors and we take every opportunity to curse, so we call it Bullshit. Smee had a theory that spouses can read each other’s minds and we tried in vain to prove him wrong. We knew when we were lying about what cards we put in the cards. We just knew. What mattered was that nobody was killing anybody and Ella and I were having a nice time again. It was as if none of the crap we both faced ever happened, and we were just two sisters hanging out.

            We watched the sun set over Neverland and “retired,” as James called it. I waited for Ella to be asleep in her bed in the other room and then went to the captain’s quarters where I found James in bed, shirtless, reading a Dr. Spock book. “Hey, where’d you get that?”

            “I salvaged it from the hold,” he said. “A few, actually. The rest are on the desk.”

            I sighed. “Meh. I haven’t slept in…more than twenty-four hours, so I’m going to bed.” I picked out pajamas from a suitcase and undressed. I had the fleece pajama pants on and stood topless by a mirror, staring at the skin bulging out from my previously slim stomach. I touched it. The skin was soft as ever, but I imagined what was ahead. I was scared, until I realized James had gotten up to stand by me. He put his hand over my hand on my stomach and kissed my bare shoulder. “My love,” he whispered in my ear. “You honor me.”

            “Cool,” I replied, still staring at my reflection. A pause, and then, “I’m gonna get really fat. You know that, right?”

            He chortled and kissed me, and that communicated he’d still love me. Well, of course he would. I threw my arms around his neck and pulled closer. Somehow we fell onto the bed, made out a little more and went to sleep.

            I dreamt that I was in Uncle Rick’s closet of horror that Ella spoke of. There were pictures of me, her and various other children in…very bad positions. The worst part was that when I looked down at my naked body I looked like Honey Boo-Boo’s mom, so seeing old pictures of me when I was young and not a whale was painful. _James!_ I cried. _James, help me!_ The door opened a little and I saw Uncle Rick. _He doesn’t love you anymore. You’re mine now._ He was holding me on a chain leash, I realized as he laughed maniacally. Through the space between him and the door, I noticed Ella lying on the floor in his bedroom, burned to death.           

 


	8. Chapter 8

            “Lucy, _Lucy._ Wake up.”

            I woke up breathless and sweaty. As I caught my breath, comforted by the slight rocking sensation below the familiar bed I lay upon, I noticed James was sitting up beside me, sexy and shirtless as ever, and Ella was standing at the foot of the bed wearing a white nightdress, her baby bump looking a tiny bit bigger. Mine sure did. “Nightmare?” James asked.

            I nodded.

            “It was the same one I had, wasn’t it?” Ella asked, her lips tight and her eyes closed as if she were trying not to look at something disgusting.

            “Were you trapped in the closet?”

            “Yeah. And I wasn’t a cute kind of fat like Melissa McCarthy. An ugly kind of fat.” She sat at the foot of the bed and hugged herself. Shivering at the disgustingness, she added, “And there were pictures of you, me, Peter, and before Uncle Rick closed the door I saw you lying on the floor and you looked like you burned to death or something.”

            I hugged her and she cried on my shoulder. I looked back at James and mouthed, _yeah, same one_.

            After some crying and getting snot all over my T-shirt, she looked at James and asked, “What time is it?”

            He looked at a little clock at the nightstand. “It’s four in the morning.”

            “Yay,” I sighed.

            “Well, it’s not like I’m going back to sleep or anything,” Ella grunted. “I need to take a walk. You can join me or you can stay behind and worry about me.”

I chortled. "I used to say that to my parents, y'know, before I stopped talking." I sighed. "They were usually too hungover to do anything." I put on my Blutengel hoodie and exited the cabin. 

 

Smee was snoring on his stool that he placed by the door. Ella was leaning on the stern, staring at the glimmering water that reflected the black sky speckled with stars. I approached her. I knew she noticed without turning her head because she didn't jump when I said, "I would have taken you with me." I leaned against the wall with her. She looked at me through the corner of her eye. "If I knew that Uncle Rick would use you as a substitute for me. I'd...send you to an English school, let you sit in on my German classes and just wait for you and everyone to...forget." 

"The past is in the past," she said blankly. "It's over now, right? He can't get past these scary pirates." 

I patted her back. "He can't get here at all."

"I wouldn't be so sure," she said. "I locked myself in the closet of Grandma and Grandpa's guest room before he dragged me to Germany. I stuffed a chair under the doorknob and leaned against the door. He couldn't get in no matter how hard he banged. So you know what that..." She grunted. " _Man_ , for lack of a better word did?" She didn't let me ask. She pulled her hair behind her left ear. The helix of it was cut open and red. "He cut the door off its hinges with a chainsaw super fast and I couldn't get out of the way in time."

My stomach churned and I threw up into the sea again. Ella was a better fighter than me. She was crafty enough to try to hide from him rather than waiting for it. But she was such a worse loser that half an inch of her ear was split. Atrocious! Once I was done throwing up, I slid onto the deck and pulled myself into an upright position against the wall. Ella joined me. "Probably shouldn't've told you that," she said.

I shook my head. "I kinda needed to know." I sighed. "I should have taken you with me. Ella, why aren't you angry with me?"

She wrapped her little arms around me and said, "Because every step you made, everything you did before that for ten years straight was selfless. You deserved to do something selfish." She pointed to my slightly swollen stomach. "And that genetically perfect thing in there wouldn't be so genetically perfect. 'Cause it would be ginger."

Deformed, maybe," I said. "But why ginger? I have a natural hair color, too."

She half-scoffed and half-chortled. "What is it, then? Mom burned all your baby pictures and I don't remember."

I thought for a second and said, "Damn, I don't remember either. I always redye it before any natural color shows."

A strange wind blew. Ella looked up and pointed. "Hey, a shooting star!"

Do shooting stars fall? This one did. Closer and closer it came and I realized this was no shooting star. It was the figure of a person. A man, no, a boy. A boy soaring through the air, deliberately coming closer and closer until I was off my feet. I couldn't turn my head to see who this was. All I could do was scream and spew on Smee's head and scream more until I was gone. 


	9. Chapter 9

Peter Pan threw me on the forest floor. Luckily it was on my butt and by my stomach. I started to breathe again and when I looked around, I was surrounded by wide-eyes little boys. "Mother," one said. "You've...put on a few."

Slightly the wise-ass. Before I could retort, the twins hugged me. The twins. I never knew their real names. They were just sweet boys. But I wasn't their mother. I didn't want to be their mother when I was seventeen and bored, I didn't want to be their mother when I was twenty-three and pregnant with the child of someone I legit loved. None of these children's fathers were still alive so I wouldn't know. I pulled myself onto my feet and said, "Okay, this...is a huge mistake. I wasn't your mother five years ago, I'm not your mother now. And Slightly, I'm two months pregnant. I've gained eight pounds but I'm not fat, so shut up."

He giggled and said to Tootles next to him, "She's so strict!"

Peter Pan approached me and said, "Pregnant? With Father's baby?"

"Peter, would you care to explain to me what the fuck I'm doing here?" I hissed, making him step back. "Or just take me back where I was?"

"Would you care to explain to me," he retorted. "How you got onto Captain Hook and Robyn Byrd's ship? Where's Father?"

I furrowed my eyebrows. "Huh? Wait...what's your father's name?"

"Our father is Richard Pennington," Nibs said proudly.

"And our mother's is Ella Pennington," Curly added. He ran to me and hugged me. "I'm so happy you're back, Mother."

"I hope your baby is a boy," one of the twins said. 

"We need a new man," the other added. 

I pried Curly off of me and said, "You...poor, mistaken lads." I rubbed my head. "I'm Lucinda Pennington, aka Robyn Byrd. I'm not your mother and the bun in the oven is not my terrible Uncle Rick's." I furrowed my eyes again and said to Peter, "Don't tell me you're in touch with that son of...my grandparents."

"Sure I am! He visits every fall!" Peter said. "Haven't seen _you_ in a while, _Ella_."

"He...can come here alone?" I asked.

They all nodded. My lips tightened. The good news was that James probably wouldn't let Ella out of his sight because I was gone. The bad news was that Uncle Rick could find us. "Boys, you're right about one thing. Ella is pregnant with Uncle Rick's baby. And she's fifteen years old. But boys, I'm twenty-three and my name isn't Lucinda Pennington anymore. For that matter, it isn't Robyn Byrd. It's Mrs. Lucy Hook."

The boys tried to laugh but wound up staring in shock and/or disgust. "Mother, that's not a funny joke," Tootles said. 

"Yes, tell the one about the fish!" Nibs said.

I sighed. "I'm afraid I don't know that one...because I'm not Ella. I'm Lucy."

"Don't be silly, Mother," Slightly said. "Come, let's go in the house and wait for Father. We sent for him. He's not in England but he's coming soon!"

I gulped. "When is...soon?"

He shrugged. "A few days."

My lips tightened and my stomach churned. Uncle Rick had access to Neverland, an therefore he ha access to Ella and me. Nowhere in the galaxy was safe until he was dead. "Sweet lawd, I gotta get out of here." Before anyone else could move, say something or anything, I ran into the woods, as if it were at all safer there. At some point, I stopped and fell asleep. 


	10. Chapter 10

I woke up feeling strangely refreshed, as if I had been asleep for a few days. I felt warm, too, especially at my feet. I pulled myself upright and noticed I looked even more pregnant. I stood up and realized I was in a teepee, amongst a circle of them. The warmth was from a fire in the center that a few darker-skinned individuals were sitting by, but not crowding. Indians. My mom told me once, when she was sober enough to have a sober conversation, that if you're lost always go to a mommy. I sort of understand why know, and I took that advice and approached a pregnant woman sitting on the grass a little bit away from the fire. I said to her slowly, respecting that she may not speak much English, "Excuse me, erm, w-where am I?"

She smiled nervously. "No speak English. See Chief and Chieftess." Gracefully she pointed to the biggest teepee surrounding the fire. An elegant man and woman sat outside, watching their people bustle. I mumbled a thank you and walked to them. I caught their eyes and instinctively bowed. "Lucy Hook. I come in peace."

woman giggled. I stood back up and noticed she looked no younger than I was. In the teepee, however, I noticed what looked like toys. She said clearly but with an accent, "Welcome to our camp, Lucy. I am Armawa, Chieftess of the Picaninny Tribe." She gestured to the elegant but threatening man beside her. "This is my husband, the Chief. He found you passed out on the forest floor an saved you from a bear." He said something in his native language. Armawa added, "Which has been eaten entirely as of a few hours ago, so sorry you had to miss out."

"That's okay, uh, it's kinda against my morals to eat a bear, even if it tried to eat me."

They laughed and the Chief tried to say between laughs, "Neverland bears...different from...your bears."

Armawa calmed down and stood up. "Walk with me, Mrs. Hook."

As I took a step with her, I said, "Mrs. Hook was my mother-in-law. You gotta call me Lucy."

She giggled twice and then got back to business. "I'd expect your husband to go looking for you now, but I shall send a few hunters out to make the journey to his ship to tell them you're all right."

"Journey? How long?" I asked. 

"Three days," she replied. 

James told me that Peter had to remain superior so only he could fly, but occasionally when the boys had to go somewhere far, somehow they could fly temporarily. Indians did not fly. "How long was I out?"

"Two days," she said. We came across a sundial past only one layer of trees. "And four hours."

"So, if he started a few hours after I went missing, he could be here soon?"

"Yes," she replied.

"All right, so there's little to nothing to worry about," I said somewhat happily.

We made it back to the center bonfire where a few men were roasting meat. "Ah, lunch shall be ready shortly," she said. She led me back to the teepee I woke up in. To the left of it, I saw a woman carving something out of wood, a pile of beads across her lap. She was about as pregnant as Ella.  "Lucy, this is Frayara. She volunteered to share her tent with you. She doesn't speak but if you use body language she will understand your English."

I nodded and waved to her. "Hi there," I said. 

She smiled and waved back. She then returned to her work. I turned to Armawa and said, "Just one more question...why? Why are you being so kind to me?"

Armawa's face fell. "It's personal. Your...uncle? Is that right? The man with red hair, he raped ten young women. Frayara is the only one who didn't kill herself." She sighed. "She's also the youngest. Twelve years old."

My lips tightened. This girl was me, except a different color and a little more unfortunate, because he didn't hold back. I knelt beside her and said, "I was twelve, too. When he...y'know."

She looked at me with empathetic eyes and put her hand on my shoulder. "My sister was younger."

She pointed to herself and then stuck out two fingers. I took that as me too. "How old?" I asked.

She counted nine fingers. I suddenly felt woozy. "I...need to lie down."

"Aren't you hungry for lunch?" Armawa asked. 

"No," I said. I'd cough it right up. "I should be for dinner though."  I ran into the teepee and fell on the soft floor. 

The bible declares an eye for an eye. I'm an atheist. I'm just using that as an excuse. Don't judge me unless you judge those Amurikun politicians who do the same. I digress. Uncle Rick deserved more than death. Torture. Humiliation. Butt stuff. And apparently he was coming. I said before falling asleep again to myself, "It's Rick or me this time."


	11. Chapter 11

"What's today? Do you know?" I asked Armawa as Frayara put a clay bead in my braided hair.

"I don't know. Nobody ever knows. You've been here four days. What day was it last time you checked?"

I shrugged. "Kinda close to my birthday. It's not today, just...soon."

Frayara smiled and patted my back gently. We seemed to be able to read each others' minds. I could tell she was saying happy birthday, well, more like thinking. 

In the distance I heard my name echo from behind the trees. A familiar voice was calling. I hadn't heard it in what felt like so long, because since then my pregnancy had rapidly increased. Neverland pregnancies are weird. I stretched my neck up and heard it again, louder and closer. Clearer. I saw a tall figure approaching and I thought I knew. "James?"

James appeared from behind a tree. His eyes widened at the sight of me. Without help, I sprung up and ran into his arms. He held me as tight as he could without crushing me, pressing his lips repeatedly on my head that I leaned on his shoulder and cried on. I didn't care that those wonderful Picaninnies were staring. I had the dude I loved back. Once we both calmed down, he said, looking me in the eye, "Love, there is a lot I need to tell you on the way back. We found a shortcut to the harbor so it won't be more than an hour journey. Ready?" 

"Hold on," I said. I knelt to my buddy Frayara and said, "Keep on trucking, kid. If I can survive, so can you."

She hugged me. I turned to Armawa and said, "I don't know how I'll ever repay you."

"There is only one way," she said. Her eyes seemed to darken. "Get your revenge."

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about," James muttered.

I hurriedly finished thanking and saying goodbye to everybody and then went to James. He led me a few paces into the trees until we found some crew members and the sedan chair. I’d been on it once, many years ago. I was surprised they didn’t get rid of it. “Oh, god, this old thing,” I sighed fondly. I said a few hellos to the crew as James went in. He assisted in getting me in, partially on his lap in the tight space. Someone closed the door and then we were off the ground, walking at a fast but not nauseating pace. I got comfortable and said, “Why do I feel like I’ve done this a zillion times, when, come to think of it, I’ve only rode once?”

He ran his cold iron right appendage down my jawline and turned my head to face him. He kissed my lips with that level of assertiveness and gentleness that hasn’t gotten old, not even once. I tangled my fingers in his hair and pulled him closer, if that was possible. Eventually we both ran out of breath and he said, his lips two inches from mine, “I have to tell you, love. He’s here.”

I knew who _“he”_ was but automatically I said, “Who?”

He knew I knew, though. “You _know_ who.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” I said. “The girl I was hanging out with at the camp was pregnant with his baby, too. He comes and goes, apparently. Can’t believe the crew doesn’t know.”

“And he’s here,” he replied. “We coaxed Ella into the hold where he can’t go in without confronting a few men first, but he didn’t bother us.”

“ _Yet_ ,” I replied, my hands clenching together. “He’s out to get me. Or her. Or…both.” My stomach churned. “Oh, god, please, I don’t want to throw up,” I moaned.

He held me closer and stroked my hair. I breathed heavily but soon calmed down. I looked down at my significantly more swollen stomach and said, “It’s accelerating all weird. Like…a month fast. It’s spooky. I kinda wanted a normal pregnancy. Annoying cravings, baby showers and stuff. And I’ve spent more time with those lovely Picaninnies than I have with my own husband, thanks to that rat who’s my uncle for some reason!”

Stinging tears ran down my face. James pressed his lips against my forehead and rocked me a little. “Shh-shh-shh, my love, you’re safe now.”

I looked out the window. We had gotten far away from the camp. I sighed. “They’re not.”

“The moment we get back to the ship, love, we’ll make a plan to get him,” he assured me. “He can’t hide here.”

I nodded. “He’ll look for me, or Ella, or both at some point…so…maybe that won’t be very hard. H-how is Ella?”

“Well, she panicked for the first day but ran out of energy, panicked a little more but then Kojo and Smee got her to lie down and watch a movie on the computer. She should still be down there.”

“Good, good,” I said. “Peter Pan and his _Children of the Corn_ cult thought I was her. That’s…ridiculous. I take after my dad, she takes after my mom. Nobody thought we were sisters in Philadelphia. They called me _mother_ , and claimed Rick was their father.” I gulped. “What the fuck did he do to _them_? Ella said he had a bunch of child porn in his closet, including…boys.” I gulped again and stuck my head out the window. I shouted to the crew members, “Put us down for a sec! Gotta throw up!”

They obeyed. I jumped out the window and ran into the trees and threw up the porridge and fruit I ate for breakfast, hugging a tree with one arm for support. When I was done, I felt James’s arms wrap around me from behind. He kissed behind my ear and purred soothingly, “He won’t survive another week. I promise.”

“A week is too long,” I hissed. “And you’re not gonna kill him. I am. And it’s going to be the most painful, morbid death ever.”

I pushed myself out of his grip and jumped onto a low branch on the tree I used for support. I pried it off and threw it across the woods. I started to cry and turned to James and said, “I think this is a mixture of me being really pregnant and vengeful. I need to lie down.”

He practically carried me back to the sedan chair and I fell right asleep in his arms.


	12. Chapter 12

            James woke me up when we got back to the ship. He and Kojo helped me up onto it. I expected to be eagerly greeted by the crew first, but Ella attacked me before they could even realize it was me. She was extremely pregnant. Her belly pressed against mine when she threw her arms around me and cried between sobs, “Lucy, Lucy, Lucy! You’re okay! You’re okay!”

            I stroked her hair and ignored the tears that streamed down my face as well. “Yup. I’m…I’m okay.”

            She released me when she realized she was choking me and said, simply holding my hands, “What did they do to you? Why are you dressed like an Indian?”

            “Um, they took care of me for a few days after I escaped the clutches of the Lost Boys…who thought I was you.” I sighed. “I don’t think I should tell you what happened. It would worry you too much, and you’re super pregnant right now.”

            She sighed. “I’ll take your word for it. But I have some bad news too that I need to share. Come on down to the computer.”

            James and I followed her to the computer room. The Internet was open with many links that said someone committed suicide in Kensington Gardens, and I knew who and that he wasn’t actually dead. “Uncle Rick faked his death for some reason,” Ella said. “But he’s still alive, and he’s here, and he’s out to get us. I know it. But I don’t know what he has planned.” She gulped. “Something gross.”

            I skimmed through a CNN article. The title announced that the search was over and the body was identified as Richard Pennington. His family was devastated, his German victims relieved, and they gave up the search for the girl he was seen at the Berlin airport with, to the dismay of his ex-sister-in-law. “Hey, look at this,” I said. “ _Alexa Jacobs-Pennington claims the girl was her daughter Ella. ‘I already lost one daughter, I’m not losing the other one. Ella, if you’re out there, come home.’”_

            “Yeah, that’s how she sounds when she’s sober, but she’s probably drinking her troubles away,” Ella said.

            “ _Jacob_ s _-Pennington, who divorced Pennington’s brother John four and a half years ago, says her daughter Lucinda committed suicide on her eighteenth birthday. John Pennington was not available for a comment,_ ” I read.

            “Probably too drunk to answer the phone,” Ella spat.

            “I have half a mind to call these newspeople and tell them he’s still out here,” I said. “But they wouldn’t believe he escaped to a fictional universe.”

            “How strange, to fake his own death,” James noted.           

            “Maybe so there’d be no consequences,” Ella said. “A clean slate. He can go anywhere now, and he’ll either kill us and take me with him.” She gulped. “When I told him I was pregnant and convinced him it was his, he said that he’d take care of me and take me to Canada where we’d live the rest of our days a happy couple. Before I could tell him he was a sick fuck, he hung up.” A tear fell down her face. “I hope he dies a slow and painful death.”

            “He will,” I said. “We just gotta make a plan to capture him or something.”

            She stood up from the chair. “I’m in.”

            “Can we stop you?” James asked.

            She shook her head and took our hands. “Let’s _go_.”


	13. Chapter 13

            We went out on the deck and I shouted to the crew who weren’t doing anything essential, “Hey, guys. Family meeting. Circle time.”

            They all joined us in a circle. Once they all had their eyes on me, I said, “Okay, as some of you should know, our _dear_ Uncle Rick is here and we know he’s out to get us. We need to make a plan to either hunt him down or capture him when he comes.”

            Starkey said, “Well, which would work better? Him coming here and us attacking, or us tracking him down and attacking?”

            I clenched my hands together. “While I was hanging out with the Picanninies, I kinda vowed that I’d be the one to kill him, but I don’t have the energy to hunt him down and I’m not so sure you guys could bring him here in time, no offense, so maybe waiting it out would be best.”

            “Agreed,” James said, taking my hand.

            “Not agreed!” Ella exclaimed. “He’s here! He could be molesting some other kid as we _speak_! We need to track him down before more little girls get raped! And if you’re too pregnant to do that, you can’t kill him!”

            I sighed. “No, I’m not. It’s just one part of a task I can’t do.”           

            Ella stomped her foot. “You’re such a chicken! You won’t get your hands dirty, but you’ll get them bloody? That’s retarded!”

            “Ella, how about calming down and keeping your mind open?” I retorted.

            “I could say the same to you!” she hissed. “Whoever wants to join me to hunt this son of a whore down and kill anyone who’s in our way, join me!”

            A pirate whose name I always forgot took a step, then screeched and fell down. Behind him was a ginger dude who held a big-ass knife, capable of killing anyone with one chop. He wore the animal hides of the Picanninies who volunteered to retrieve James for me. I recognized him immediately as Uncle Rick. “Oh, hell no!” I screamed. I grabbed James’s gun from his belt and aimed it at him. I shot but he flew away in time. I noticed Peter Pan behind James about to cut his other hand off, but James caught him in time and pushed him to the floor. Uncle Rick grabbed Ella before she could run away and hissed, spitting in her ear, “I got you now, babe!”

            “Let me go, you motherfucker!” she cried. She struggled a little and fell against his knife. She made a choking sound and slipped out of his grip as I shot him in the arm. Peter got out of James’s grip and before he could move, I held the gun to his head. “Don’t move a muscle,” I hissed. I said to James who got back on his feet, “Hold Rick down before he gets up.”

            My husband obeyed. Ella was writhing on the floor. Smee ran to her and I said, “Put her on my bed, keep her alive.” He picked her up and took her away. I wrapped my arm around Peter’s neck and kept the barrel of the gun against his head. I dragged him to Uncle Rick and said, “I got you both right where I want you.”

            “Please don’t kill me, Mother,” Peter whimpered. “I came to you to ask you for help. You see…Father—“

            “That’s our secret, Peter,” Uncle Rick hissed.

            My eyes widened. I took Peter’s knife from his belt and released his neck, but sympathetically held his hand. “He did it to me, too. And the girl you claim is your mother, except worse.”

            He was crying and so was I. “Be a man, god damn it, Peter!”

            “Man? Peter Pan?” I scoffed. “Idiot! He’s the Boy who Never Grew Up! Emphasis on _Boy!_ ” I called to the rest of the crew, “Some of you guys take him down to the holding cell, treat his bullet wound but do whatever you please with him. Just don’t kill him.” I glared at him. “He’s mine,” I hissed.

            “You are really hot when you get angry,” he said with a genuine smile.

            That got James pissed off. He knocked him on the head with the metal thing that held his hook onto his stub for a right hand hard enough to hurt him and maybe give him a mild concussion, but not hard enough to make him pass out. “Your days are numbered,” he hissed as Bill Jukes, Noodler and Cecco approached to take him away. James released him for a split second so they could grab him and followed them to the brig under the ship. I then turned to Peter, who stared in shock, and said, my hand on his shoulder, “You’re a good kid, Peter Pan. You never deserved any of this. I’m sorry you had to suffer, and I’m glad you snapped out of the brainwashing he did to you.”

            He sniffled. “Thanks…Robyn,” he said.

            I smiled at him. “It’s Lucy these days. Ella kinda wanted to see you. I’ll ask if she’s up for it. Follow me.” He followed me into the hall leading to the captain’s quarters. “Stay here,” I told him. I opened the door and found Smee kneeling by the bed. Ella looked pale and weak. Smee saw me and said, “Miss Lucy…she’s dying. The cut he put in her was too thick. The baby didn’t shield her.”

            “Peter’s outside. Wanna see him?” I asked.

            She nodded. I opened the door and said, “Come on in.”

            Peter slowly walked inside and gasped at the sight of my dying sister. “Ella,” he said.

            “Hi, Peter,” she said.

            Peter and I walked to where Smee was kneeling. Peter knelt and took her hand. “Ella…I’m sorry.”

            “For what?” she said with a weak smile.

            “For falling into…whatever his real name is’s trap. And…that he did this to you. That wasn’t the plan. We were going to—“

            She held her hand out and waved it in dismissal. “I don’t wanna know. Just know, Peter, that I forgive you and I love you.”

            Tears streamed down my face as Ella said to me, “C’mere, Lucy.”

            Peter and Smee stepped back and I knelt by her. I took her cold, clammy hand and said, “Yeah, kiddo?”

            “Sorry I yelled at you,” she said. “That’s not how I wanted this to end.”

            I shook my head. “Forgiven. Forgotten. Y’know, screw that.”

            She gulped and said, “You have to kill him. You alone. A slow and painful death like in one of Dad’s movies.”

            I nodded. “Will do.” I would have killed him gently if she asked me to, but in my heart I was glad she was sticking with my original plan.

            “There’s a couple of things I want you to do. First, track down Mom and Dad and tell them what actually happened. They’ll believe it from you. They’ll believe anything you tell them because you’re alive.”

            “As you wish,” I said.

            “Second, how much Bee Gees do you have on your phone?” she asked. “Do you have the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack?”

            “Yeah,” I replied.

            “Okay. He hates that movie and the Bee Gees, so play that while you kill him slowly and painfully.” She smiled. “Just to torture him.”

            “Will do,” I replied. That actually sounded fun.

            She coughed weakly and I held her hand a little tighter. “This isn’t how I imagined it’d end,” she muttered. “You know that _American Dad_ episode about Armageddon and all the true Christians get their own personal heavens?”

            “Classic episode,” I said with a little smile.           

            “You know what my personal heaven would be?”

            My lips tightened. “What?”

            “The five of us,” she said. “You, me, James and our babies, just raising them like we were supposed to. No soul mate for me, but an easy life as a single mom. Basically…just, an impossible best case scenario.” She made a choking sound again. “My last request…’cause I’m dying now. Sing a song.”

            I said to Smee, “Get my guitar.” He retrieved it from the other side of the room, even taking it out of the case for me. I put it on my lap and tightened a few strings. “What should I play?”

            “Anything. Just something fun to die to.”

            One song came to my head, but it was the best one. I hadn’t sung it for Ella in many years, but now was the time. “ _Now the world don’t move to the beat of just one drum. What might be right for you may not be right for some. A man is born, he’s a man of means. Then along come two, they got nothing but their jeans, but they’ve got…diff’rent strokes, it takes, diff’rent strokes, it takes, diff’rent strokes to move the world.”_ She smiled as her eyes began to flutter. Tears fell down my face as I continued, “ _Everybody’s got a special kind of story. Everybody finds a way to shi-i-ine. It don’t matter what you got, not a lot, so what? They’ll have theirs, you’ll have yours and I’ll have mine, and together we’ll be fine ‘cause it takes…diff’rent strokes to move the world_.” She sang with me, “ _Yes it does_.” Her smile faded and I stopped playing, but sang very quietly, “ _It takes…diff’rent strokes to move the world._ ” I put my guitar down and felt her pulse. There wasn’t one. I could feel Smee and Peter crying. They could tell she was dead. I took out the braids Frayara put in my hair, then my Blutengel hoodie. I turned to Smee and Peter and said, “Richard Pennington dies today. Go on the deck and don’t worry about me.”

            They obeyed. I changed into a black tank top and jeans, put my hair in a ponytail and my phone in my pocket and exited the bedroom to go to the hold. I found the pile of weapons and picked up a bat, swords, knives and some lemon juice. I put them in a bundle and carried them to the brig.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Uncle Rick gets brutally tortured. Feel free to skip this.

            I could hear Uncle Rick’s cries and the crew’s cackles through the door. I knocked three times and James opened it a crack. “Is he tied up?”

            “Yes,” he said.

            “Okay. My turn now. You can wait outside, just don’t come in unless you think he’s attacking me, which he won’t.”

            James must have realized there was absolutely no stopping me. He summoned the crew out. Before I went in, he took my hand gently and said, “It’s the twenty-seventh.”

            I looked at him. “Huh?”

            “Your birthday,” he said.

            My lips tightened. “So it is.”

            He kissed my forehead. “Happy birthday, love.”

            “Thanks,” I said. My solemn face turned into a sneer. “This is the best birthday present ever.”

            He let go of my hand and closed the door behind me. I took a moment to examine Uncle Rick. They stripped him down to his underwear. He was bruised a little and exhausted. He looked down at the grimy floor, but eventually perked up at the sight of me. “Lucy…please, have _mercy_. I love you.”

            I didn’t say anything. I just unraveled the bundle of sharp objects and lemon juice on the floor away from his reach. I then took out my phone and searched through the artist section until I found the Bee Gees. I pressed the one album they had and considered which song to start with. _Stayin’ Alive_ was too much of a cliché. _How Deep Is Your Love_ wasn’t encouraging enough for me. I chose _Night Fever_ and put it on the highest volume. I then put it on the bundle and tapped my foot as the song started with a little smile.

            “The Bee Gees? Seriously? I hate them. What are you doing?”

            I picked up the bat and tapped it against my right hand a few times as I approached him. His legs, which weren’t bound, tried to go away from me but I hit them both in the knees, possibly causing permanent damage. He cried out. Tears streamed down his face. “Ow,” he sobbed.

            I smiled and started breathing heavily like a maniac. I then hit the bat between his legs. He screamed, his voice getting higher until it cracked. “W-why?” he cried.

            “So that terribly thing doesn’t attack any more little girls,” she said. “Or boys. Remember Frayara?”

            He grunted. “Who?”

            I kicked him between his legs. “She’s twelve years old and she’s keeping the baby.”

            “Who is she? A redskin?”

            I kicked him again. “The term is _Native American_ or _Picanniny_. She’s one of many you attacked, but the only one who didn’t kill herself.”

            “Well…I’m sorry,” he said.

            He flinched but I didn’t hit him. “Sorry doesn’t cut it,” I said. I put the bat down and picked up a tiny dagger and the lemon juice. I sat on his immobile legs and said as I dipped the dagger in the lemon juice and the song changed to _Jive Talkin’_ , “Hold still now. This will only hurt forever.”

            I relished the sound of his screams as I cut the words not deep enough to make him bleed enough but deep enough to scar _Vergewaltiger Hurensohn_. That’s the German word for _rapist_ _son of a bitch_. I relished the sound of his screams and cries as I carved it. I put a drop of lemon juice in my mouth and spat over him. I wiped the blood off the dagger with his underwear and then put it back in the bundle. I got a bigger blade and before I could kneel to attack him, he said, “Lucy, please. I’m…I’m sorry that I ruined your live. I’m sorry I didn’t learn a lesson and did it again to more innocent kids. I’ll never do it again! Please, just stop hurting me!”

            I cut open his underwear, then sliced off his dick like I dreamed, looking him in the eye. “Even if I were insane enough to keep you alive, I’d have to make sure.”

            “You’re gonna kill me?” he asked.

            “Yeah,” I replied.

            He sighed. “I guess I deserve it. Just…do it quickly.”

            I stabbed his sliced off manhood because I didn’t want to touch it and put it in his mouth. “Nuh-uh,” I replied.

            I picked up a longer knife and cut off his fingers one by one, quietly singing along to _You Should Be Dancing_. I poured some lemon juice on his bleeding hands and watched him cry and struggle to spit out his dick. He was getting weaker and bleeding to death. That was too much of a natural cause. It was time. I poured the rest of the lemon juice over his chest and cut him open like a frog being dissected. He screamed. I watched the life pour out of his eyes and his body get limper and limper. He gagged a little but then stopped all together.

            I avenged my sister, my Picaninny friends and myself. Richard Pennington was dead at two thirty P.M. on June 27th.

 

            I opened the door to find a lot of the crew crowded in the hall. Their eyes widened at the sight of me. I looked down at myself and realized I was covered in blood and I was tickled pink. I smiled. “Let’s go home,” I said.

           


	15. Chapter 15

            On the deck, we began to prepare to leave Neverland. I noticed Peter was alone on the poop deck. I approached him and sat beside him. “We’re going back to Germany,” I said.

            “Where?” he said.

            “It’s the country James and I live in,” I said. After a moment of silence, I said, “Wanna come?”

            He shook his head. “I need to stay here and take care of the Indians and the Lost Boys. Now that we’re safe.”

            “Good idea,” I said. I patted his back. “This may well be goodbye. I’m safe, too. But the crew will go back to Neverland and they have ways of contacting us. If you need me for anything, just go to them and ask them to call us.”

            “Thank you,” he said.

            I kissed his cheek as if I were the mother he thought I was. He smiled at me, then flew away.

            The anchor raised and the ship started moving. James was at the wheel. I approached him and said, “You know what I have stuck in my head?”

            “What?” he asked.

            Everyone heard me, I noticed because they were all looking and not working. I cleared my throat and began to sing, “ _Do you hear the people sing? Singing a song of angry men. It is the music of the people who will not be slaves again_.” We love Les Mis on the Jolly Roger. Few by few, they began singing along, “ _When the beating of your heart echoes the beating of the drums, there is a life about to start when tomorrow comes!_ ” They all got back to work but sang along, “ _Will you join in our crusade? Who will be strong and stand with me? Beyond the barricade is there a world you long to see?_ ” James and I sang together, “Then join in the fight that will give you the right to be _free!_ ” They all chimed in as we sailed into the sun, _“Do you hear the people sing? Singing the song of angry men? It is the music of the people who will not be slaves again! When the beating of your heart echoes the beating of the drums there is a life about to start when tomorrow comes_.” Kojo, James and I sang at the same time, “Will you give all you can give so that our banner may advance? Some will fall and some will live, will you stand up and take your chance? The blood of the martyrs will water the meadows of France!” Everyone chimed in again, loud enough for Ella in her personal heaven to hear, “ _Do you hear the people sing? Singing a song of angry men? It is the music of the people who will not be slaves again! When the beating of your heart echoes the beating of the drums there is a life about to start when tomorrow comes._ ” I was crying but I didn’t realize it. I just screamed at the top of my lungs, “Tomorrow comes!”


	16. Chapter 16

            Suri Cruise’s cuteness was no match at all for Sofie Ella Hook. She lay half-awake in my arms, struggling to stay awake to get a look at her father and me. “She looks a lot like you,” I said in English as she began to fall asleep.

            “Does she?” he said.

            “Maybe she’ll morph into me at some point,” I suggested. “But right now, she’s you, except a baby…and a girl.”

            Hedy, the nurse, shook the curtain that separated me from my neighbors in the hospital, Karla and Lenz. I called her in and she entered, “Just came to check on you three. Looks like she’s tuckered out,” Hedy said, referring to Sofie. “I can take her to the nursery if you want.”

            “All right,” I replied. Hedy took Sofie and exited. I sighed and said to James, who still sat on the edge of the right side of the bed, “One of Ella’s last requests was to get back in touch with our parents. I never bothered but…I think I need to call my mom. At least my mom.”

            “Do you have the strength?” he asked.

            “Sure,” I said. “I’m pretty strong, y’know.”

            He kissed my head and got up to retrieve my phone from my purse. He handed it to me and I dialed my mom’s cell phone number. With a shaky hand, I put it to my ear and heard it ring. I realized as it rang many times that she may know better than to answer a long-distance number. In the midst of a ring, the phone was answered. A strangely unfamiliar voice said, “Hello?”

            “I’m sorry, erh, is this Alexa Jacobs-Pennington?” I asked, reaching for James’s hand. He took it.

            “Just Jacobs, thank you very little,” she scoffed. Then I realized why this voice was unfamiliar. She was sober. “Who’s this?”

            I gulped. I didn’t know what to say. “Hi, Mom,” I said.

            With a glint of hope in her tone, she replied, “Ella? Is…is that you?”

            “No,” I said. “Mom…it’s Lucy.” I could only hear her breathing. After a moment, I said to her, “Your first daughter…the one who committed suicide on her eighteenth birthday.”

            “Then…how are you still alive?” she said, obviously trying to believe me.

            “I didn’t die. I just ran away to Germany.”

            “Oh, my god,” she breathed. “H-how’d you get there?”

            “I…flew,” I muttered.

            “And you’re still there?” she said.

            “Yeah,” I replied. “In a Berlin hospital.”

            “What?!” she exclaimed. “Why? Are you okay?”

            “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” I said with a little smile. She actually cared, and I was happy. “I, erh, gave birth a few hours ago.”

            “What?!” she exclaimed, even louder. “W-whose baby?”

            “My husband’s,” I giggled. “It’s…it’s a long story. Let me put you on speaker.” I put her on speaker and said, “Can you hear me?”

            “Yeah,” she replied. “Now tell me the story.”

            “Well…it began about six years ago at Kensington Gardens.”


End file.
